Contemporary fabrication processes for semiconductor devices and other electronic components commonly rely upon robotics and automatic transfer mechanisms for transporting wafers or other substrates between fabrication processing stations. Such transfer mechanisms are accompanied by electrostatic charging of the wafers or substrates associated, for example, with contacting and separating from other components (triboelectric effect). Accumulated electrostatic charges attract contaminants from ambient air and can also cause damaging electrostatic discharges within microchip circuits or other fabricated electronic components. One effective protective measure is to neutralize electrostatic charges using an air stream of positive and negative ions directed to the charged object. Ideally, balanced quantities of positive and negative ions are supplied to the object to avoid charging the object on the unbalanced excessions of one polarity.
Self-balancing production of positive and negative ions requires excellent insulation from ground of the high-voltage supplies and minimum leakage of ionization currents. These requirements conventionally result in bulky apparatus having large separations between ionizing electrodes of opposite polarities, and requiring high-voltage supplies of large dimensions capable of delivering 15-20 kilovolts of air-ionizing potential.